Dear Refiner's Fire...

My pastor believes that Yeshua had three bodies. One, the body in which He was born; Two, the body in which He resurrected; and Three, the body in which He ascended to Heaven.

I agree He had a body in which He was born, a body of flesh and blood. That body died on the cross and was buried. The resurrected body, a glorified body, was flesh and bones, with the scars of crucifixion, but had no blood, because it was shed for our redemption.

I also know, because the Bible proves it, He ascended with that resurrected, glorified body. He didn't slough it off and go to Heaven in a third body.

Thomas could touch Him, put his finger in the nail holes, put his hand in His side. Yeshua broke bread and ate fish. It was a physical body.

Our Response....

Andrew Gabriel Roth responds:

Messiah's physical being is not a succession of used cars that one gets out of and into another. Y'shua's resurrection as Firstfruits means that he had to suffer and die as a regular human being.

I think the pastor is confusing Y'shua with what Rav Shaul writes about us in 1 Cor. 15. It is Y'shua's resurrection that makes possible OUR RESURRECTION and it is for US that WE are sown in death and raised in life.

It is incorrect to suggest Y'shua's not having any blood in the Thomas incident. True blood was shed, especially with the blood and water coming out of his side, but the resurrection itself re-animated Y'shua into a fully functioning living man - meaning blood restored, organs functioning properly, etc. Otherwise, how could he eat and digest that broiled fish? Y'shua even says this almost directly in John 10 - he lays down his LIFE that he might PICK IT UP AGAIN. If life, as in human life, is picked up again, then it resumes functioning in the expected manner.

Now, I grant the pastor the ascension situation is a bit vague. Actually Y'shua ascended TWICE in Scripture, so I assume he means the second one at Shavuot. Did Y'shua as a bodily man with the Ruach ha Kodesh embedded in him ascend? Yes, he did. After the first acension he came back and breathed that same Ruach on the disciples and still kept it.

But there is a small clue about this and it appears in Rev 19:13. It says that Y'shua is called the Word of Elohim when he comes out of heaven. Yet before, in Acts, he is a human going into heaven, and earlier in John he is the Word made flesh. Put these together, and it emerges that Y'shua was the Word BEFORE his human life, and again AFTER his human life, when he ascends to be next to the Father as he says the Word was next to the Father, was with Elohim and was Elohim. So, if he was the Word when he came OUT of heaven (and before), it stands to reason he became the Word when he returned to heaven. Becoming the Word again means to shed the flesh, but he would have retained some form of human appearance - perhaps like that in Daniel 7 before the Ancient of Days, but beyond this, Scripture does not reveal. What it does tell us is that Y'shua told Phillip, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father", and so he has.